'Optics': Critics slam 'least surprising thing that Trump has done so far'

02 August

U.S. President Donald Trump and lady Melania Trump depart for travel to Texas to tour areas affected by deadly flash flooding, from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Panelists on CNN’s ‘Table for Five’ blasted the timing of President Donald Trump building a $200 million ballroom as the U.S. reports low job numbers this week.

“Optics have been an incredibly important part of every White House until this one,” said one panelist. “[First Lady] Michelle Obama was gardening so that she would have a good image. This goes completely opposite the image of a country where the economy is teetering downward for most people. People are paying more for groceries and we're going to build a $200 million room?”

‘Table for Five’ host Abby Phillip said the construction of the project was inconsistent with the Trump administration’s controversial war on government inefficiency.

“The whole situation with this administration and saving versus spending—what’s waste, what's not—is paradoxical. I don't understand it,” said Phillip. “They're currently … paying over 100,000 federal employees to do nothing, not to work, they're cutting [the budget] in the big, beautiful bill and Medicaid … and then they're saying, on the other hand, ‘let's renovate the Oval Office, let's renovate the East Room, let's renovate the Rose Garden. I mean, it's hard to understand. “

Phillip went on to question why the administration was “outsourcing the building of a federal building like the White House to random private donors.”

“What guardrails are going to be put on that?” she asked.

CNN analyst Harry Enten, sitting in on the panel, said the American people should not be surprised however.

“I guess, you know, with everything gold plated this, gold plated that, of all the things that Donald Trump has done during his administration, the idea that they'd spend $200 million to redo a wing of the White House and then there'd be a ton of gold—that has to rate as the least surprising thing that Trump has done so far,” Enten said.

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